2004—Planning the City with Cultural Concepts (Part 3)
III. Provide safeguard measures for comprehensively planning tourism destination development with cultural concepts. (1) Establish an organizational body. Since urban cultural development covers every aspect and field of city construction, it is by no means something the cultural department alone can handle. Therefore, a corresponding organizational body must be established; otherwise, even the best ideas may come to nothing.
This article has been compiled from historical materials in the "Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network" (33519.com · City Overview section). Some administrative divisions, population, socioeconomic data, and policy information may be outdated and are for reference only; for the latest situation, please refer to official releases by the local government and scenic areas.
Third, provide safeguard measures for comprehensively planning the construction of the tourist destination with cultural concepts.
(1) Establish an organizational structure.
Precisely because urban cultural construction covers every link and every field of urban construction and is by no means something that can be resolved within the scope of the cultural department alone, a corresponding organizational structure must be established; otherwise, no matter how good the ideas are, they may remain empty talk and cannot be put into practice. In view of the successful experience of the municipal tourism work committee model, quite a few comrades during the research suggested establishing a municipal cultural work committee led by the city's main leaders. Considering that the city has just established an urban work committee, and referring to Shanghai's practice, it is suggested to set up a "Municipal Urban Culture Research Center," directly led by the Municipal Urban Work Committee. Its functions are: to preside over the formulation of urban cultural development strategy, organize forces to complete the positioning of the city image, participate in determining the basic style and colors of urban architecture, participate in the review of urban construction projects, plan major cultural activities, guide, inspect, and supervise the three major cultural projects, and provide information and basis for decision-making by the municipal party committee and municipal government from the perspective of cultural construction.
(2) Raise ideological understanding, thoroughly explain and comprehend the principle that "cultural input brings tourism output," and form a consensus on planning tourist destination construction with cultural concepts.
The construction of the tourist destination in the urban area certainly includes cultural construction. During the research process, quite a few comrades reported that the municipal party committee and municipal government still had not truly "gotten serious" about cultural construction. Looking back, the reason so much has piled up in this area is that, objectively speaking, the very limited financial resources were indeed first used to solve the most basic infrastructure such as transportation, energy, and communications, and for a time there was no capacity to attend to anything else.
The current situation should be said to have changed greatly from the early days, and the focus of work has also shifted to urban construction. As long as the whole city thoroughly explains and comprehends the principle that "cultural input brings tourism output," that is, today's cultural input will become tomorrow's tourism output, then shifting ideological understanding and policy measures toward cultural construction is entirely achievable.
(3) Issue relevant policies.
Our city should increase the intensity of "getting serious" about investment in cultural construction. It should use economic levers such as finance, taxation, and credit to guide the direction of funds, focus on supporting important cultural institutions and key cultural projects, and truly implement the fiscal and tax preferential policies of the State Council and the provincial government concerning cultural projects. It is necessary to treat public-welfare cultural undertakings, semi-public-welfare and semi-industrial cultural undertakings, and for-profit cultural undertakings differently: for the first category, the government should continue to increase financial support; for the second category, adopt the method of fiscal subsidies to support their development; for the third category, adopt the method of self-financing, self-development, government guidance, and market operation. Efforts should be made to overcome the mistaken understanding that confuses cultural undertakings with cultural industries and merely wants to shed "burdens."
Fellow committee members and comrades, we firmly believe that with a strong organizational structure and preferential cultural and economic policies as safeguards, and with the joint efforts and solid work of all ethnic groups in the city, before long a tourist destination city comparable to a world-class natural scenic area and possessing relatively high cultural taste will surely appear before us!